#bellasu | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bleep0bleep · 7 years

Note

Hi Carrie. I don't know if you're doing prompts or anything but I needed to ask anyway. You're always able to help me when I need it (when my mum was diagnosed with cancer and when I broke my elbow). I had to have my 12 year old German Shepherd put to sleep last night (April 28th) and I feel so empty and lost now. I don't know what to do and I was hoping you could write something to cheer me up/help/distract me?

i’m so sorry to hear about your dog. this is a little late, but i’ve been travelling and stuff and i’ve only seen this message just now. sending you lots of love, and i hope this ficlet cheers you up a bit

Derek loves his family, he really does. But sometimes he wishes they weren’t so… weird. And it’s not that he doesn’t have fun at the annual Hale-Extravaganza, the ridiculous family reunion that they hold every summer at Lake Bellasue. When he was a kid, he looked forward to it every year, how all the Hales from all over the country would gather and he’d get to see his favorite cousin from Texas and see Aunt Jo and Uncle Monty argue over jam and his grandma would make all the best food. It’s two weeks of potato-sack races, scavenger hunts, s’mores, swimming, and more, and the only time Derek sees his cousins and stuff.

Even if they weren’t werewolves, they’d still be weird. For instance: Derek is wearing a bright pink t-shirt (Cora’s design, this year) that proudly declares HALE PACK WEST COAST BEST COAST because in about an hour he and the other kids (Derek is twenty-two years old, and he can’t believe he still has to play all these games) on his team are gonna face off against the cousins from New York.

The matching t-shirts, Derek could probably explain. There are a lot of families who do that. There’s at least two other reunions (none quite as large as the Hales) at this lake, which is a popular vacation destination. Derek’s never took much notice of the other people there; just usually kids on spring break from the local college partying and swimming and racing around on jetskis and stuff.

But this year is different.

“Hey, Derek!”

Oh, fuck, he’s shirtless again. Derek can see every one of his moles playfully scattered across his chest. There’s a mole right on his hip, and Derek freezes.

“Hi,” he manages, his throat closing up. Derek is painfully aware that there is glitter on his cheeks, and probably mashed potatoes still in his hair, and he’s wearing mismatched flipflops.

Theoretically, Derek should be annoyed by Stiles– everything from the backwards hat, the board shorts, the litany of “dudes” that flow from his mouth, the fact that he is one of the obnoxious spring breakers. But the first time they ran into each other, Stiles immediately got into an argument about him about Star Wars (Derek absolutely does not count the extended universe as canon, and Stiles does), and then proceeded to help Derek’s two year old niece tie her shoe and well… Derek is, for the lack of better word, very, very distracted this family reunion.

Stiles laughs.“I love that your family is big enough to have teams on both coasts. Or packs. Hah. Themes are hilarious. Heard all of you guys howling at the moon last night. Your baby cousins are loud, dude.”

“Oh. Yeah.” They were all howling last night, not just the kids.

“Getting ready to, uh…” Stiles trails off, looking at the state of the steaks in the bag Derek has trailing on the ground.

Derek flushes, wishing desperately that he wasn’t dragging a bag full of dripping, oozing, steaks as he’s walking back to the campground. A normal person would have put them in a cooler immediately, or started grilling them. A normal person would not be dragging this steak on the ground, trying to lay confusing scent trails for the full moon race later. He has no explanation for this cute boy that he wants to get to know.

“I, uh, this isn’t what… it looks like.”

Stiles eyes widen and he grins conspiratorially. “No worries, man. I’ve done my fair share of pranks.”

Derek nods, grateful for the excuse.

“Hey, my friends and I are gonna play volleyball later, like around three. Wanna join? We’re short a person.”

“Oh.” Derek can’t help the warm flush that races through him. “I’d love to, but I’m supposed to do arts and crafts with my cousins at three. And uh, and then we have to prep for this scavenger hunt- race thing tonight.”

“Cool, cool,” Stiles says, and grins at him. “Have fun!”

Derek does not have fun. He grumps through the whole afternoon during the ping pong tournament against the New York cousins, grumps while fingerpainting with the babies, grumps through Laura’s brainstorming session on the scavenger hunt, grumps through dinner.

He goes through the rest of the week’s schedule, and there’s absolutely no room for him to slip away during the activities, not without disappointing his mom and a dozen aunts and uncles. But his thoughts are on Stiles and the way the sunlight reflects off the lake, dancing in his warm brown eyes, the jaunty smirk he has on his face whenever he sees Derek. There might be a chance for him to slip away around dinnertime, if Derek can actually work up the nerve to talk to Stiles and ask him to… what, hang out? Go on a date? Watch the sunset with him? How does this even work, really?

Derek runs into Stiles two more times, both of them are equally embarrassing. Derek doesn’t get to asking Stiles anything, but he does actually have conversations with him. More like more arguments. Stiles has appalling taste in comics, and very different ideas but he’s sharp and funny and Derek’s never had so much fun talking to anyone about everything and nothing at all. Derek doesn’t understand how one minute he’s tongue-tied and the next he’s insulting Batman but he’s pretty sure Stiles thinks that he hates him. Or at least, definitely doesn’t think of Derek in a romantic way.

It’s just after the sunset, and Derek is in his full shifted form, padding back through the woods down the trail back towards the campground. He’s just bringing up the rear; it’s the first time a lot of the younger kids have shifted, and they’re taking their time learning how to use their senses as wolves and find their way by scent. It’s Derek’s job to make sure no one is behind him. He can hear everyone make it back to the campsite, and little Tori is squealing about how much fun it was. So, effectively, his job is done.

On a whim, he stays shifted, padding down the other trail to the lake, when he hears it. Bright laughter and Stiles’ voice, talking to… himself. There’s no one else around.

“Fuck you, Isaac, I totally have the balls to get that flag back, why did Scott even let you put it on that fucking buoy in the middle of the lake in the first place…”

Derek peers through the bushes, and sure enough, Stiles is shivering, swimming out to the middle of the lake. He watches for a moment, admires the long, fluid strokes Stiles is making, the tight roundness of his biceps, and pads a bit closer to watch Stiles make it out to the buoy and grab the little flag.

Stiles turns around and then suddenly lets out a high pitched shriek, and disappears under the water in a flurry of splashes.

Derek doesn’t even think about it, just jumps into the water and swims for him. He gets to Stiles immediately, but Stiles is thrashing and flailing so hard that he can’t do anything without hands. Derek shifts back, grabbing him and pulling him towards the shore.

It’s all noise and confusion until they’re on the beach, and Stiles is coughing and spluttering. “What the fuck? Derek? When did you– fuck, why are you naked!?!”

“Uh. Skinnydipping. I saw you go down and thought you were drowning. Are you– are you okay?”

Stiles’ cheeks are bright red. “Yeah, thanks. I was just getting that flag thing Isaac stuck on that buoy as a dare, and then I turned around and saw this huge black wolf– or I thought I saw one, I dunno.”

“You know it’s not a good idea to go swimming by yourself. Especially if it’s dark.”

“Well, you– you don’t even have shoes!”

“I like feeling the ground under my feet.”

“You are so weird,” Stiles says. “I don’t even know why I like you so much.”

“You like me?” Derek says, hope singing in his words.

Stiles’ blush goes all the way down, pink blooming on his bare chest. “Don’t make it weird, okay, like I’m sure you have people crush on you all the time, it’s not–”

“I like you!”

Stiles stills. “Oh. Good, okay, we like each other.”

Derek beams, standing up, and Stiles pointedly looks at the night sky. “Do you want to walk back to camp with me? And hold hands?”

“Yes, and uh, after that, do you wanna put on some clothes and make out?”

Derek laugh, and says yes to everything.

#roxyblade #carrie talks to people #sterek #my fiction #vacation au #alive hales #pet death cw #for the ask

804 notes · View notes